Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called Pope Francis a "victim of propaganda."
This is reported by Gazeta.ua.
That's how the Chechen dictator commented on the pontiff's interview with the American media, in which he allegedly called Chechens and Buryats "the most brutal part of the Russian troops" in Ukraine. Kadyrov believes that Pope Francis said so solely because "he became a victim of propaganda and insistence of foreign media."
As reported, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova, said that Pope Francis' statements about the crimes of Russian military personnel in Ukraine are a "distortion of the truth."
Background information
At the request of an American journalist, Pope Francis explained in an interview with the Jesuit magazine "America" why he sometimes talks about Putin, Russia and its aggression against Ukraine in an implicit way.
"When I talk about Ukraine, I am talking about the martyr nation, martyr people. If there are martyr people, then there is one who torments them. When I talk about Ukraine, I talk about cruelty because I have a lot of information about the brutality of the invading troops. The most violent are probably those from Russia but do not belong to the Russian tradition, such as Chechens, Buryats, etc. Of course, the one who attacks is the Russian state. This is quite evident. Sometimes I try not to specify things so as not to offend but rather to condemn in general, although it is well-known who I am judging. One needs not to indicate the first and last name," the pontiff said.